Each year, I am afforded two weeks of continuing ed time, to refresh and learn something. One year, I took a couple of classes at the local community college, to finish a degree I’d begun before I came to Flint; but for most of my time at Woodside, I have gathered multiple times a year in denominational and colleague meetings, which isn’t exactly continuing ed, but is refreshment, and usually a chance to learn something. Since Covid, all those meetings have been via Zoom, and pared way down to just the basics. A lot less collegial engagement, a lot less refreshment.
So, last year, our Board of Directors approved a two-week reading break, during which time I disappeared and did little besides read. I got through about eight books; a compilation of thoughts on those books is here.
This year, the board approved a similar two-week break, and I wandered off with another pile of books. I finished several, but I also added a new discipline to my reading: I created a separate book review blog on this website. I’m not pretending I’m the most entertaining book reviewer you’ve ever read, or the most intellectual, but the blog posts do two things: They help me process what I’m reading, to ensure it stays somewhere in my consciousness, thus becoming useful knowledge for things like sermons as we go forward. And they let you have a look at what I’m reading and what I’m thinking (if you want that). (And they’ll get better with practice.)
Another interesting thing this year is that the Michigan Conference UCC, through its Prophetic Integrity Mission Area Team, has designated 2021 as the Year of Reclaiming Jesus, with congregations encouraged to learn what we can about fascism and its three key chief components — militarism, capitalism and racism. That theme has guided my reading choices for the past few months, as you can see in the reviews I’ve written on books such as The Socialist Manifesto, An End To Policing, On Tyranny, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, and Detroit: I Do Mind Dying. I’m still catching up on the reviews while I’m making my way now through The Consequences of Capitalism, so count on hearing more about that.
Meanwhile, here’s a joke for you, one my dad told us when we were kids:
A man took a job selling toothbrushes, but wasn’t making many sales. He was very discouraged. He tried multiple locations, going door-to-door, even setting up a booth outside the airport for travelers who may have forgotten. Finally, he’d had enough and made a new plan: he set up a tasting booth at a busy intersection. Crackers and spread. He would have snacks and that would make people stop at his booth! As each customer approached, he offered them a sample. They would take the cracker and dip it in the spread, pop it in their mouths — and grimace and spit. “What is this?” they would exclaim. “It tastes like shit!” And the man would respond “It is shit. Wanna buy a toothbrush?”
Dad wouldn’t love me telling the joke. I mean, he would love me telling it, but he may not love what I’m about to turn it into — a parable about empire. I can tell you with some confidence that this is how capitalism works.
Capitalists create a market for whatever they have to sell. In our American case, our biggest export is not democracy as the myth goes, but militarism. The US has a long and ugly history of stirring conflict around the world so we can export militarism. It costs us 60 percent of the federal budget, but the proceeds go to private corporations. And a whole lot of the stirring we do is based on racism and xenophobia — stoking fear or paranoia among neighbors around the world, then handing them (for a price, of course) the weapons, expertise and money to go to war with each other.
(Side note: did you know that until 1945, the Department of Defense was actually the Department of War? See how changing the name changed public perception of what they do? This is a good time for Woodside to feel the power of a name change.)
As often as not, that “war” we’ve fostered is one-sided; global genocide has our brand name all over it. Plus, though this is a minor departure from the toothbrush salesman, most of what we sell is made from components, resources and labor that are stolen to begin with. Meanwhile here at home, we celebrate billionaires who have leveraged the federal budget and sacrificed our integrity and humanity to create and sell things that harm the world instead of using those resources to make our communities stronger; and we ponder as if theoretically whether cops should have the right to kill black and brown people going about their day.
I’m not a proud American. You know that.
There are prophets in every age who try to tell empire just how off-course it is, how far it has departed from the common good. It is the church’s responsibility to learn the craft from the biblical prophets, and teach it to the ones who come next. Empire is never surprised — or moved — by such prophetic damnation; it wasn’t aiming for the common good to begin with. The US is the imperial power in the world now, and the church’s work matters more than ever. We have to be the ones calling to account the folks in charge, the ones dealing in conflict and theft. It may cost us everything, but we'll get back our integrity and humanity.
You may be rolling your eyes, thinking to yourself “will she ever get a new theme?” I wouldn’t count on it. But I would count on church continuing to live in denial, in complicity, celebrating conquest and theft, and pretending it can’t happen here (ignoring that it regularly does). Around the world, church has its own long shameful history. Breaking free of that generations-long habit is no easy task. We have no choice.